What’s new in 5.4.0

Some highlights of the 5.4.0 release include:

• A backwards compatible container implementation has been added to CakePHP.
• New methods on Collection for working with keys, values, conditional method chaining, and imploding to a string.
• New Lock package for working with distributed locks.
• Commands now have $this->io and $this->args as properties.
• ConsoleHelpHeaderProviderInterface lets commands customize help output header messages.
• The #[RequestToDto] attribute enables automatic mapping of request data to Data Transfer Objects.
• Added JsonStreamResponse for more memory efficient streaming of large JSON responses.
• Added several new expression builders for null-safe comparisons, and aggregations.
• Added Connection::afterCommit() to register callbacks that run after the outermost transaction commits.
• Additional postgres index metadata reflection and generation support was added.
• LoggedQuery::setRedactor() was added to scrub sensitive data from query logs.
• Added a PSR-13 Link header implementation.
• Number::toReadableSizes() now defaults binary units (KiB = 1024 bytes) with setUseIecUnits().
• I18n::setCacheConfig() lets you rename the _cake_transalations_ cache profile.
• cake i18 extract now extracts labels added with the #[Label] attribute.
• The associated option in newEntity() and patchEntity() supports the nested array format used by contain().
• TestCase::mockModel() enables mocking of model classes with Mockery.
• Added new Utility\Fs classes for scanning and pattern based discovery of directory trees.
• Security::encrypt() now supports longer keys with separate encryption and authentication keys.
• Text::mask() and Text::maskValue() were added.
• FormHelper::enumOptions() was added to make generating form inputs from enums easier.
• The default eager loading strategy for HasMany and BelongsToMany associations was changed from select to subquery.
• Table methods for patching, saving, deleting and loading entities now check entity class types and reject mismatched entities.
• FormHelper now wraps hidden form blocks used for CSRF and tampering prevention with hidden attributes instead of inline styles.
• Application::events() and Plugin::events() are now called consistently in both web and CLI contexts, and can use DI container services.

The migration guide has a complete list of what’s new in 5.4.0. We recommend you give that page a read when upgrading as it notes the behavior changes present in 5.4.0.

Contributors to 5.4.0

Thank you to all the contributors that have contributed to this release:

• Abdul Malik Ikhsan
• ADmad
• celsowm
• gillux
• Graham Watson
• Jamison Bryant
• Jasper Smet
• Joachim Rey
• Kevin Pfeifer
• Mallik Hassan
• Mark Scherer
• Mark Story
• Nicos Panayides
• othercorey

As always, a huge thanks to all the community members that helped make this release happen by reporting issues and sending pull requests.

Download a packaged release on github.